One of the major questions that comes up by this point in the season is: who's for real? It's late enough, just past the halfway mark, that we are apt to start giving some weight to this year's stats. But as we well know by now thanks to Voros McCracken, pitcher stats can be heavily influenced by luck and defense on balls in play. Thus, a pitcher who's success is dependent on those factors may be a bad bet to keep it up.

* - Scroll down to the bottom of this post for details on the formula; the formula I used may need to be adjusted downward a bit, given that it produced a DIPS ERA of 4.50 for the National League as a whole compared to a league ERA of 4.32. The AL numbers were closer, with a DIPS ERA of 4.55 for the AL compared to a league ERA of 4.54.

I'll run a few of these here and do more later this week if time permits. Let's start with the NL East (all stats through Monday night's action):

The Mets

For the Mets, I'll just run the four starters who have significant innings, plus the Mets' "All-Star" closer, Armando Benitez:

The good news: Jae Seo is for real, with just 20 walks allowed and 7 home runs in 102.2 IP. Seo is a rarity, a "Tommy John-type" pitcher (low BB, low K, low HR) who's not lefthanded and not a sinkerballer (in fact, these days, most control specialists are big fly ball guys like Brad Radke and Rick Reed).

On to the rest of the division:

The Marlins

For the Marlins, let's look at the vaunted young arms in the rotation:

Pitcher

DIPS ERA (Actual ERA, Difference)

Dontrelle Willis

2.89 (2.13, +0.76)

Mark Redman

3.34 (2.80, +0.54)

Brad Penny

4.02 (4.56, -0.54)

Carl Pavano

3.97 (4.45, -0.48)

Josh Beckett

3.55 (3.93, -0.38)

Main lesson: the Marlins' most and least successful starters are closer together than they appear. Of course, this doesn't take account of park effects, which may be helping Dontrelle Willis in particular. And Willis may not be a legit 2.13 ERA guy (who is?), but he's been plenty effective nonetheless.

The Braves

Pitcher

DIPS ERA (Actual ERA, Difference)

Russ Ortiz

4.38 (3.50, +0.88)

Greg Maddux

4.38 (4.71, -0.33)

Mike Hampton

4.33 (4.73, -0.40)

Horacio Ramirez

4.56 (3.49, +1.07)

Shane Reynolds

4.94 (6.04, -1.10)

John Smoltz

1.87 (0.99, +0.88)

DIPS appears once again as The Great Leveler: it turns out that Horacio Ramirez and Russ Ortiz haven't really pitched that much better than even the struggling Shane Reynolds. And yes, John Smoltz is amazing, but nobody's that good.

The Expos

Pitcher

DIPS ERA (Actual ERA, Difference)

Javier Vazquez

4.01 (3.95, +0.06)

Livan Hernandez

4.34 (3.83, +0.51)

Tomo Okha

5.11 (4.70, +0.41)

Claudio Vargas

4.72 (2.82, +1.90)

Zach Day

4.47 (3.44, +1.03)

Rocky Biddle

3.75 (3.61, +0.14)

DIPS is pretty down on the Expos pitchers (or up on the Expos' defense, depending how you look at it): basically everyone on the staff either allows too many home runs or doesn't strike anyone out. The exception is improbable closer Rocky Biddle, who's getting the job done with whiffs and just 2 homers allowed in 42.1 IP, thus allowing him to post respectable numbers despite a ghastly 5.31 BB/9IP. Advice to Rotisserie owners of Claudio Vargas: sell.

The Phillies

Pitcher

DIPS ERA (Actual ERA, Difference)

Kevin Millwood

3.58 (3.87, -0.29)

Randy Wolf

4.29 (3.40, +0.89)

Brett Myers

4.42 (3.57, +0.85)

Vincente Padilla

4.54 (3.93, +0.61)

Brandon Duckworth

4.06 (5.06, -1.00)

Jose Mesa

3.74 (4.97, -1.23)

With the Phils having the most-efficient defense in the NL, you'd expect DIPS to downgrade some of their pitchers. Of course, none of that will matter much if the defense plays like this all year, but Millwood's status as staff ace should become clearer as the year wears on (and Millwood's defensive support looks even worse when you consider that one of his starts was a no-hitter), while Randy Wolf's breakout year looks a lot shakier when you consider that more than 1/6 of his hits allowed this year have left the yard, and Brett Myers is likewise way over his head.

* - Unfortunately, there seems to be some confusion over McCracken's formula; it appears that, as of 2001, the formula was as follows:

This is the corrected version at the end of the comments section in his Baseball Primer piece, although admittedly it still doesn't give me the results Voros reported for 2001 -- it consistently gives results around 0.15 higher. So, perhaps the DIPS ERAs I'm reporting here will be a bit higher than they should, and as noted above, the NL DIPS ERA as a whole is out of whack with the league ERA. If anyone's aware of an improved version published since then, let me know.